FAR Manager Tutorial: Generating SHA256 Hash for Files

 In the last post, we blogged about FAR Manager for string search features which is helpful for malware analyst to find the specific suspicious string presence in the large set of files. In this post how we can use FAR Manager for hash calculation of a file. Technically, FAR Manager doesn't have a built-in feature for calculating the SHA256 hash of a file. However, we can use external tools to achieve this. One such tool is `CertUtil`, which is available in Windows. Basically, these steps can be done with normal command prompt but I am just explaining it using FAR Manager.

Here are the steps to calculate the SHA256 hash of a file using FAR Manager and `CertUtil`:

1. Open FAR Manager and navigate to the location of the file for which you want to calculate the SHA256 hash.

2. Press `Alt+F2` to open the command prompt at the bottom of the FAR Manager window.

3. Type the following command to calculate the SHA256 hash of the file using `CertUtil`: 

   certutil -hashfile <filename> SHA256

  

   Replace `<filename>` with the actual name of the file you want to calculate the hash for.

   For example:

   certutil -hashfile example.txt SHA256

   

4. Press `Enter` to execute the command.

5. The SHA256 hash of the file will be displayed in the command prompt.

Note: Make sure that `CertUtil` is available in your system's PATH. In most Windows installations, it should be available by default.

Alternatively, you can use third-party tools like `sha256sum` or PowerShell commands if they are more convenient for your workflow.

Post by 

newWorld